Tag: GDC

Part eight in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last March’s GDC 2015 are online and you can watch them when ever you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the complete vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

Part seven in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last March’s GDC 2015 are online and you can watch them when ever you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the complete vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

Part seven in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last March’s GDC 2015 are online and you can watch them when ever you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the complete vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

Part six in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last March’s GDC 2015 are online and you can watch them when ever you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the complete vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

Part five in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last March’s GDC 2015 are online and you can watch them whenever you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

vPart four in my series of highlighting free talks from Game Developers Conference 2015!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from GDC 2015 are now online and you can watch them when you want! If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free. I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

We Suck at Inclusivity: How Language Creates the Largest Invisible Minority for Games

Many developers do not think about Arabic at all, and in fact the majority of games don’t even bother translating. When they do, often the results are comical at best for anyone who actually speaks the language. In an effort to promote more understanding, Rami decided to give GDC attendees a basic overview of Arabic. Why is this so important? Well, if you haven’t checked out Rami’s Microtalk, you should watch that first and let him explain it himself.

GDC Microtalks 2015: One Hour, Ten Speakers, Games and Play, and Us

The GDC Microtalks are always a highlight for me. Held every year, ten speakers are invited to give a talk that is exactly five minutes and twenty seconds long with slides that automatically advance after exactly 16 seconds. The subjects vary, from high level discussions about art and culture in games, to well thought out rants on the speaker’s personal pet peeves with the industry.

What’s great about this session is that due to the nature of the format, the speakers have to have high energy and hook you in quickly. I don’t think you can every be bored, as every five and a half minutes a new speaker comes up with a whole new subject.

They also allow for important passionate speeches that may not work as half hour or hour-long lectures, but their message is neatly summarized in a few minutes and make you look at a subject or design problem in a way you may not have thought of before.

I really liked being able to watch Holly Gramazio’s talk again to write down the rules for some of those games. 50/50 is a really good idea!

Time to highlight another talk from the Game Developers Conference 2015.

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last month’s GDC 2015 are now online and you can watch them when you want!

If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free.

I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

Keep Grooving: Life Musings & Live Musics

Teddy Diefenbach (Hyper Light Drifter & Kyoto Wild) and Rich Vreeland from Disasterpeace perform this unique talk. I say perform because it truly is a performance, not a normal lecture. I really like the way it was delivered with simple visuals and live music.

Wrapped up in a story about his day, Teddy gives all sorts of advice on how he deals with project management, social media, and work/life balance.

Talks from the Game Developers Conference 2015 are now uploaded to the GDC Vault!

What is the GDC Vault?

The GDC Vault is a collection of (most of the) talks at various GDC events. Talks from last month’s GDC 2015 are now online and you can watch them when you want!

If you have an all access, speaker or media badge you get access to the vault. Otherwise, there is an extra charge. However, each year they release certain talks for free.

I wanted to highlight some of my favorite talks from this year that are available for everybody to watch for free.

“game < design” from Stone Librande

I am very lucky to say I was one of Stone’s students in college. I actually took his class twice. Not because I did badly the first time (I got an A), but because I learned so much I wanted to hear all the lectures and do all the homework again. Stone has worked at Blizzard, EA/Maxis, and now Riot Games.

This year his talk was about design. Not “GAME design”, but design in general. Even if you don’t consider yourself a designer, I would recommend checking out this talk. Design ideas apply to everything you create. Whether it’s a software program, a piece of art, or a chair.

What about your talk?

Sadly, my talk “Best Practices for Small Studios” is not available for free. But, if you have access to the GDC Vault, just search for “Tobiah” and it’ll be the first result.

What other talks do you recommend?

Do you have any talks you want to highlight from GDC or the GDC Vault? Let me know about it! I’ll be going through as many of the talks as I can myself slowly but surely over the next couple of months.

Today is Friday, and we’ve reached the last day GDC 2015. As always, it’s been a wonderful time. I’m on the CalTrain now heading back home now, so time for my summary of my last day.

Friday, GDC 2015 Day Five

I spent most of my time in the expo. I wanted to have a chance to talk to a few of the exhibitors.

Sadly, the Stanly Parable talk I wanted to go to was full, so I went off to play some board games instead. In the west hall on the third floor they had an area with some board games being shown off, one of which was “One Night Werewolf”

“One Night Werewolf” is just like a normal game of Werewolf, only it lasts one night. It’s really that simple, and I can’t believe how well it works. There is a lot of bluffing, role switching (so you aren’t 100% sure who you are), and the game is timed to last exactly 5 minutes. I plan to get a copy for myself right away!

Then I went to my last session of GDC 2015, the Experimental Gameplay Workshop. There a bunch of game developers took turns showing off their incredible games. Some were educational, some made you get up and move around, some told amazing personal stories, and some were just plain weird.

I feel like I couldn’t do them all justice to try to describe them. Watching Ryan describe “That Dragon, Cancer” brought me to tears. Now that I have my own daughter on the way, I don’t know how I am going to handle going through that game.

Here is a list of the people who presented, you should check out their work for yourself at your own pace, they’re amazing:

Final Summary

I don’t go to as many sessions as I have in earlier years, now that I have access to the vault. I’ve prioritized meeting and talking with other developers. I still got to see a few though! Funny enough, my favorite this year was the very first one I saw: “Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers”. Such a great history of cameras in 2d games.

I am looking forward to getting the feedback from my talk. I hope everybody there liked it! I’ll let you all know when you can get it on the vault.

2014 was one of the best years of my life, but also the absolute most busiest. I released fewer games than at any other point in my adult life. GDC has motivated me to be better at fixing that.

Thank you again to all the wonderful people I’ve met or reconnected with this year. Feel free to contact me anytime if you ever have a question, or if there is anything I can do to help you out.